


But I've Loved These Days

by Chaifootsteps



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: A brief allusion to Mal being into petplay, Alien Biology, Drug Use, Explicit Sexual Content, Group Sex, Just young and very very silly., M/M, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, The Skeksis aren't cruel or vicious quite yet., Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 15:30:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20932526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaifootsteps/pseuds/Chaifootsteps
Summary: A young skekTek has been working his talons to the bone. The other Skeksis decide that that won't do at all.For Vorselon on tumblr.





	But I've Loved These Days

SkekTek hasn't been kind to himself this past unum. That much is true.

But,_ but!_ As he's quick to argue to the increasingly disapproving Skeksis, he hasn't been outright _un_kind. He's making time for food and sleep and personal hygiene. No crushing that suspicious orange Podling powder into a glass and staying up for three days at a time; no crashing at his desk, at the dinner table, in corners of the hallway. He's making sure to stretch all six of his limbs. Every few days, he stands around in the sun for a minute or five.

Anyhow, this is all necessity. That mysterious, colorless material acquired from deep within that virgin cave passage south of the Claw Mountains is keeping something from him and if he could just get it to crystallize and _stay_ crystallized, he knows it's going to tell him something about the Crystal of Truth that will drop him to his knees. Aughra never made mention of it in all their discussions of geological phenomena and though the possibility of knowing something about the Crystal Aughra doesn't is so tantalizing, it makes his teeth chatter, it's the thought – so wild and hopeful, it feels dangerous to dwell on it – that they might heal the crystal or create a new one without triggering reunifiction that's been driving him so frantically onwards.

If he had some idea of where he stood, maybe things would be different. Maybe if he felt less close to a breakthrough, or less far from one, he could afford to think of other things.

(Maybe. Probably. It's a bridge he'll cross when he comes to it.)

In the meantime, there's a puzzle to be solved and an eternity to do it. And skekTek suspects even that may not be enough.

***

“You're going to give yourself an apoplexy,” skekOk tells him on one of his library runs, making use of the fleeting time he can be coaxed into actually sitting still by rubbing small, concerned circles on his hand.

“Hmmguh?” sloshes skekTek, because skekLach has him wrapped up in their arms and cushioned by their vast, soft belly and is doing a much, _much_ more efficient job of working out a kink in his neck.

“He's saying if you drop dead at that desk of yours, we're all going to have to take turns being the new Scientist,” they clarify. “SkekSil's going to catch himself on fire, the rest of us are going to panic and fall down the shaft, the Crystal's going to turn black, and that's going to be the end of that.”

“I'm sure I'll survive. As will you.”

They leave it to silence for a while. He indulges just a tad in the quiet of the library, and the warmth of their hands.

“We've missed you at the evening concursion,” skekOk says softly.

_That _gets a twitch of guilt, and a much sharper pang of longing. The evening concursion is one of the Skeksis' more beloved routines in a life that brims full of them. After a long day of immersing themselves in their respective vocations, no matter what else might be going on in Thra or looming large between them, there's nothing they enjoy more than retiring as a group to the thickly cushioned room above the library to smoke herb, sip away at their nightcaps, have unhurried sex, or simply lounge around touching one another while talking over their days. SkekTek has been avoiding it precisely because it's so distracting.

“And I you,” he admits. SkekLach and skekOk don't seize upon the opportunity to push or cajole him; simply press their beaks to his neck and palm, respectively. “Soon. I'll clear a spot for it.”

And he means it. He schedules it, makes a date and everything.

But that little vial of rock dust from the center of the world makes demands of him that won't be ignored.

Before he knows it, soon has come and gone.

***

SkekTek can't begin to guess at the time it must be when he entertains the notion of a break. He only knows that his eyes are straining in the light of the shaft, his mouth dry as fur and his stomach clawing out its frustrations on the rest of his organs.

He sets his supplies away, all painstaking cautiousness, and reasoning that skekAyuk's kitchens surely have to be closed by now, makes do with the hunk of pale, young nebrie cheese and the flask of cider he's stashed away in his reserves. He eats it pensively in the cool grotto three corners down from his lab, well away from potential contaminants. Reflects yet again on the consequences of failure, a repaired Crystal that drags them kicking and sobbing to the Mystics, and crudely stitches their souls into a grotesque pantomime of what was once a seamless being. Stops, because it's putting him off his meal, and if he dwells on it too long it will spook him off of the whole project entirely.

Licking his talons, he heads back for another long night. More delicate crystallization work, if he's not too tired to trust his hands. Structural review under the microscope if he is...

He never sees it coming, never hears the smack of bare feet on stone. By the time he realizes what's happened, it's far, far too late.

“_Hah!_” says his assailant, jailing him in all four arms. “Got you, Scientist.”

SkekTek, after smoothing down his elevated crest and successfully extracting his heart from his mouth, looks up into the entirely-too-satisfied face of skekGra and has to agree...

“You're the _worst._ But...yes, I'm gotten.”

The Path-Breaker closes his mouth around his beak and holds it for a moment, playful, somewhat apologetic. “And you know why that is, don't you?”

“I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with your concern reaching a breaking point and you stealing me away from my incredibly important work.”

“Ah! Always a step ahead!” His smile splits his entire face into fang and skekTek, while he has no delusions of this being anything but a step in some grander scheme, has to wonder whether the idea to come down here was something skekTek put forward or if the Skeksis sent him as an agent. It's common knowledge that he can't deny skekGra anything. “Wait. Before anything else...you don't have anything burning away in there?”

“Not at present.”

“Alright, perfect!” He nibbles, inevitably, on skekTek's neck, right in the patch of lighter blue in the center of his ruff, and yes, there it goes; skekTek's admittedly dwindling reserves of restraint. He sighs, lets himself ooze deeper into the Path-Breaker's arms. Noses into the silver fur and feathers about his neck, shot through with deeper streaks of red, and breathes the smell of the wind and sun. “So, you're going to let me convince you to take the night off?”

“...Wait, _the entire night?_”

“That is what I said. What did you think I came down for? A quick slam up against the wall and then I'd let you go back to beating your head against your desk?”

“_Yes!_ Yes! I thought that was the compromise we were venturing towards!”

SkekGra looks down at him with a mixture of exasperation and a certain sparkling that should raise flags. “Fine. Fine! Have it your way. Make me call in reinforcements.”

“Reinforce--”

Just that quickly, his exposed back is being warmed by the brush of silks and sweetly scented feathers. He'd recognize that perfume anywhere.

“Oh, you_ didn't._”

“Surprise. Is me.”

“Oh no. Absolutely not.” Granted, skekTek's making no move or even anything resembling the desire to pull away or remove skekSil's secondary hands from where they've settled on his hips, but it's the principle of the thing. “That is inequitable and unconscionable!”

“Well, we didn't know if I'd be able to win you over all on my own. SkekSil has that...knack.”

“Oh, so there is a 'we' behind this! And what do you mean, a 'knack?'”

“Scientist, Scientist,” skekSil soothes, primary set of hands gliding up skekTek's person in a way that's both promising and reminiscent of the way Gelfling calm skittish Nebrie. SkekTek hates that it works. “See reason, see sense! It has been two unum since you began project, toiling away to nothing. Crystal will still be there tomorrow. And all the days after this. For now, be kind to self. Let us take care of you.”

The tips of his talons are everywhere but where skekTek would like them to be; merely brushing in passing, as though by pure happy accident, his nipples and slits. It's all a cheap and dirty trick, but skekTek knew from the very beginning how this was going to end.

“Fine. You win. Contemptible cads. _Villians_.”

But as he follows them up the halls – past half-open doors revealing slivers of darkened rooms, past the Podling servants trundling to their quarters – it couldn't be more clear that this is a fight he was pleased to lose. They're tripping and laughing and feeling like they've gotten away with something.

And that's the secret they keep to themselves; the best part of being a Skeksis.

Life always feels like that.

***

The lounge is warm, close, provocative with the scent of rising smoke, and of course, full of sprawling Skeksis. SkekTek is greeted by a wall of overlapping cheers.

“So you accomplished the impossible!”

“Our Scientist, not quite yet wasted away to bone and talon.”

“That didn't take long.”

SkekTek waves them off. He throws his work robes onto the pile of cast off silks near the wall, helps himself to a roasted tentacle, and hooks a sip of skekNa's drink before flopping onto a cushion.

“Yes, yes, you're all terribly clever. I expect to have all my particulars checked off before the evening's out.”

SkekSil, true to form, is already on top of it, sidling up beside him and nuzzling at his shoulders. SkekGra takes his place at the other side without prompting and something about that warms skekTek's chest just a little.

“Mm, lounge is short on restraints and ties, but we will see what can be done.”

SkekTek cards talons through the thick ruff of deep blue about his neck, pulls skekGra down with a free hand to nip and rub and clack beaks. They put in the leg work, they made him want them, and if he's going to give in to this, he fully intends to give in hard.

SkekGra rumbles against the underside of his jaw. “How do you want us, Tek?”

“I want you inside of me. While I'm inside of skekSil.”

“No objections here,” contributes skekSil from the vicinity of his waist, tongue already curling around one of the buds adorning his abdomen in parallel lines. They go down in tandem, the two of them, and as they settle between his parted legs, SkekTek stretches back against the cushions like a king.

“I take the right one, you take the left one,” says skekGra over the tips of his emerging erections.

“Done!”

SkekEkt, the closest at hand, giddily watches the proceedings from where he's curled around his new paramour, the Gourmand. They're odd ducks among the Skeksis, possessive and exclusive, but they're still Skeksis, and whatever arrangement they've got going has never precluded either of them from watching. “They've been absolutely twitching to get at you for ages. It's adorable.”

“Ages?” skekTek says, voice catching when skekGra's tongue gets the first solid lick in off his right cock tip. “How long have you all been planning this?”

“Oh, I want to say...since your second manic, sleepless night?”

“Third,” skekAyuk supplies.

“Third.”

SkekTek has to laugh. He's fully hard now, and both tongues are winding in earnest. SkekGra's forms a tight, stroking seal, while skekSil's prefers to let his wander, coiling and slithering and keeping skekTek's nerves on their toes, but both stand as testament to the fact that Skeksis lose nothing for their inability to wrap their mouths around each other the way Gelfling and Podling do. He runs his talons over their heads, suddenly overwhelmingly fond of them both.

“Well, they've got me where they want me. And now it's my turn to do the twitching.”

They take him up close to the brink and keep him there for a while. He flirts with the notion of allowing them to make him come this way, the enchanting vision of his ejaculate painting their beaks and feathers. In the end, however, the memory of their arms around him in the hallway beckons louder, and he shoos them off so that he can sandwich himself between them; skekSil below, skekGra above.

“Mmmm...oh, _yes,_” skekSil coos as skekTek sheaths both phalluses inside him, tight and soft and so, _so_ warm and welcoming. SkekTek gasps into his neck when he's penetrated in kind, tail held gently to the side; he's as wet as wet can be, but skekGra is _big_ and it's been awhile.

“Alright, Scientist?” the Path-Breaker asks, breath warming the dip of his ear. SkekTek shivers.

“Never better.”

It's not exactly a languid pace they fall into – ravenous, all three of them, and skekTek increasingly aware of just how much he missed them both. But if he raises his head from skekSil's lovely smelling throat, he can see the other Skeksis watching with sleepy interest, too comfortable and sated and full of smoke to whip themselves into the kind of fervor they're known for. SkekTek thinks he glimpses a few talons wandering low on bodies, but at the same time, they're still conversing about what kind of singing mammal they all had for dinner. There's something uncomplicated about that, he thinks. It's nice.

SkekSil is, as always, a gift to the ego. “SkekTek feels wonderful. They _quiver_ when Path-Breaker moves just right, did skekTek know this?”

“I can honestly say I didn't.”

SkekGra gives a huff of laughter. “Keep quivering. He's still talking.”

“Keep moving just right,” skekTek counters. And then moans loudly enough to disrupt a few of those mammal-centric conversations when skekGra does.

The closer he gets, the more of themselves they give. Tails wrap around limbs, beaks press and clack, loving him until he's drowning in it. He trembles with the sudden rush of emotion, of being silly, vulnerable, adored, and rubs his head against skekGra as desperately as their precarious position will allow.

“Don't stop...don't let me go...”

And skekGra nuzzles him, rocks him into skekSil. Primary talons interlaced, secondary wound around skekTek's waist, keeping him held down to Thra as they send his mind inching ever heavenward.

“Never,” skekGra promises. “Never.”

***

Even afterwards, he's loathe to let them venture far. Too much, too close, the feeling of being poured so full of sensation it stretches his seams as skekSil and skekGra surround him like a z'nid's shell surrounds a chick. And so he occupies his favorite place where group trysts are concerned, lying back drunk and dizzy with afterglow in skekGra's arms, while the other Skeksis steal in for a long overdue taste of their beloved Scientist's presence.

His legs are braced on skekLach's broad shoulders, their thick, plush tongue cleaning him from the inside out. SkekZok's hand works him at a leisurely pace while skekSil's talons trace idle patterns on his stomach, toying with his nipples. SkekOk just seems content to curl into his side.

Nobody gets up when skekSo arrives, although heads incline. He knows better than to expect more than that.

“Emperor,” skekTek greets cordially, a roll of herb smoking away between his talons.

“Ahh, Scientist.” He kneels elegantly among the cushions so as to cup the side of skekTek's face with deep, quiet affection. “I trust this rabble is taking proper care of you?”

“Exceptionally so, my lord.”

“Good. Good.”

“Although I can't help but feel this may be somewhat prematurely given. At the very least, wait until my experiments on the subterranean crystals have yielded some meaningful result.”

“Oh, shut up, skekTek,” skekLach raises their head just long enough to chastise, then dives back in with a flick of the tongue so well placed, he can't even be irritated with them.

“The Collector is correct. Absolutely none of that,” says skekSo more tactfully. “We are Skeksis and we care for our own. This will never be conditional.”

SkekTek knows this, of course. It's a fact of life about the castle. He's been on the giving end of these types of affairs more times than he can count, lavishing devotion on someone purely for existing. But knowing it and hearing it are two very different things, and just now, he needs the weight of skekSo's assurance perhaps even more than he realized.

“My lord,” he blurts. “If it would please you...may I put my tongue on you?”

SkekSo smiles.

“I've certainly no objections. But I wonder...if you'd be willing to wait just a short while, if you wouldn't like to have skekMal join us?”

SkekTek's heart skips several beats. “SkekMal is in?”

“Just for the night, yes. I'm sure he'd be delighted to see you.”

“Yes, of course! I mean...absolutely, I can wait!”

SkekSo chuckles. It's a rare sound, a lovely sound, kind without condescension, the way they all imagine those awful Mystics must chuckle. “Glorious. In the meantime, shift yourselves, someone roll me some of that herb!”

And off he goes, casting aside the sheer dark robes that are all he wears. SkekSil swiftly hops up to fetch him the bowl. SkekGra steals a drag from over skekTek's shoulder, snickering.

“You're going to get them all worked up, giving them a show like that. Nobody's getting to sleep tonight. Somebody's talons are going to get too eager and they're going to nick themselves.”

“And that somebody will most assuredly be you.”

SkekGra hums an affirmative into his neck.

“Still want us to bring you over?” skekLach offers.

“No pressure in the slightest, but if you don't, we are no longer friends.”

Suffice it to say, by the time skekZok and skekLach are done with him, their friendship is cemented for the next million trine.

***

SkekMal rolls into the room like a thunderstorm. A thunderstorm of the highly welcome, parched summer ninet variety.

(In their defense, it's not often they get to see him out of his traveling armor.)

There's always been an air of awe about skekMal, not simply because he's hard-muscled and beautiful, not even because he's skekSo's, but for the way he can do what the rest of them can't; he can _live_ without soft beds, hot food, and baths on demand. He doesn't _need_ a small horde of richly compensated Podlings to look after him and he doesn't need the day in, day out adoration of the Gelfling masses. By the same bittersweet turn, as much as he may enjoy being pressed in close to the rest of his kind in revelry or in sleep, he can just as easily live without it. The less he needs them, the more they want him.

Not that he isn't polite. He makes his way around the room, stepping over tails, nods to everyone in turn; grabs a drink and commends skekAyuk on its quality in a way that doesn't command his attention from more pressing matters, namely the way his low-lurking hand is teasing a giggling skekEkt.

When skekSo holds a low, whispered conversation with him, skekTek can't help but feel the miniature teeth of anxiety, sharp enough to penetrate the pleasant buzz of their usual evening blend. But then skekMal's eyes turn upon him, slow, dangerous, and calculating, and skekTek suspects that the night is about to get very interesting before it winds down.

“So, Scientist...held off on tasting skekSo just for me, now, did you?”

...Oh, right. He is the Scientist, isn't he? He does the science.

“That was the plan, yes.”

“I'm flattered.”

“Come here,” skekSo encourages, curling a talon.

SkekTek is extremely certain he'll be doing just that.

He avoids tripping over skekLi with his herb or skekNa with his third drink of the evening, nearly _does_ trip over skekOk's tail, but makes it to where skekMal is waiting and skekSo is laid out like a banquet; slender, opulent in purple feathers. His palms rest, shaking minutely, on their emperor's knees, which part with the same effortless panache skekSo somehow succeeds in applying to everything he does.

“Your mouth is watering,” skekMal observes. So close behind him, it makes his head swim. SkekTek raises a hand to wipe it on the very plausible chance skekMal means it literally, only to find his hand stayed. “Ah, ah. He _likes_ that.”

SkekSo's phalluses, resting half-emerged against his belly. His vent sporting a sheen of wetness that catches the light.

“By your delectation, skekTek.”

SkekTek needs no second bidding.

It's not the first taste he's ever had of their Emperor, but it's not a frequent occurrence either. Not casually done to the point where the novelty's worn off, though skekTek strongly suspects it never could. He laps his channel hungrily, reverent, ravenous, uttering small, plaintive moans of rapture into his wet heat. Evidently, that's enough for skekSo.

“Hmmm....” His palm settles on the top of skekTek's head, all encouragement and no guidance, talons carefully curled to avoid pricking the skin. “If I'd known you were this hungry, I would never have let you languish without.”

SkekTek looks up at him with pure sappy adoration. Very distantly, he's aware that all eyes are on him.

SkekMal chuckles, and despite outward appearances, it's a kindly sound. Rough, certainly, but warm. Playful. “You're a Skeksis after my own heart, little Scientist.”

SkekTek can't bring himself to care about the diminutive. Not when he feels like skekMal could eat him. Not when he's certain he would let him.

He teases his hunter's talons down skekTek's flanks, hooks around his thighs. Drags the pads of his fingers around the bases of his erections, through his wetness, but at the last moment, rolls them down into the narrow gap of skin between both slits; the secret cache of nerves hidden there. SkekTek moans unabashedly as sensation lights him up from beak to tail.

“By _Thra,_ you make an exquisite vision like this,” skekSo says, just a whisper, all soft heat. Just for him. “Such striking eyes. We could live forever on the sight of those eyes. On the sounds you make.”

Astonishing, really, how a few words of praise can play him like a harp. As efficiently as skekMal is coddling the hidden knot of nerves between his slits.

“We'd adore you even if you never produced another thing for us. You know that, don't you?”

_Does_ he know that? Yes, he thinks he does. At any rate, it's hard to tell what he does and doesn't know like this, but he's suddenly blinking far too hard, and at any rate, he'll save the thinking for the light of day. He tilts his beak for a better angle, tongue maneuvering deeper, tail held wantonly out of the way. SkekMal gets the message loud and clear, stops teasing him and lines himself up. When he enters, it's so good, skekTek actually breaks away from his important task, his _only_ task, to moan helplessly into skekSo's thigh.

“_Oh...**oh**...”_

SkekMal braces himself on his palms, freeing the second set to glide over skekTek's back and shoulders. “Easy, skekTek. You like that?”

SkekTek laughs, because he has to.

“I'm going to _perish._”

SkekSo smiles, again in his way. “Is that a compliment or a threat?”

“I don't know! You're amazing, both of you. _All_ of you.”

“Me most!” calls someone.

They laugh, not necessarily because it's funny, but because they're Skeksis and they're together and life is one long glorious song. SkekTek shifts, repositions himself for a more comfortable angle, and once he's got it, plunges back into skekSo's soaking vent. SkekSo goes right back to stroking his head. SkekMal takes hold of his hips and serendeptiously, settles into exactly the right rhythm.

(Or maybe it's skekMal and all rhythms are the right one. Clearly, this will require further experimentation.)

“Would you like me to keep talking to you?” asks SkekSo.

SkekTek nods.

“Excellent. You're easy to talk to...plenty of praises to sing. Though if you keep performing_ that_ little trick with your tongue, I make no promises.” SkekTek's tail gives a pleased little hopskip. “Let's see, now. Should I tell you how astonishingly clever you are? Surely _that's_ no secret to anyone. When the Crystal slipped, you pulled our talons from the fire. You invented the master coil, the Rose calendar--”

“The filtration system,” skekGra adds helpfully.

“Locksnake antitoxin!” skekSil does as well.

“Trinity steel,” skekMal joins in.

“See?” SkekTek is certainly starting to. “Oh, by the by, skekMal, why don't you be a _good_ Hunter and put those clever teeth of yours to proper use? Our Scientist's neck is famously sensitive.”

Most likely, the Skeksis don't notice the shiver that passes through skekMal in that moment. SkekTek can't not. And when skekSo carefully strokes back the hair and feathers around his neck, exposing him for skekMal to nip, scrape, lick, and growl into without a shred of mercy, skekTek's chances of pondering it further skyrocket all the way up to zero.

He dissolves, then. Gets lost in the steady drip of himself, in skekSo's scent, in _here,_ and _there,_ and _inside_. SkekMal rolls his phalluses in ways that immerse him in white, and each time he comes up for air, he remembers to curl his tongue in the ways that, in turn, get skekSo twitching and growling. A few more judiciously timed applications of “that trick” later, skekSo's tapered off his coherent words of praise in favor of groaning through tightly gritted fangs. It's possibly the greatest affirmation skekTek's received yet.

He presses in. Gets his beak wet. But most importantly, grinds the ridge of it against that knot.

SkekSo comes with a single, sharp cry onto his own chest, gripping his plume hard enough to edge on painful, but it doesn't matter, because it's _skekSo_, breathless and utterly gorgeous, riding _his_ tongue all the way to completion. SkekSo, just for a moment, looking undone.

“...Our beautiful, brilliant Scientist,” he finishes, smoothing out the tangle of blue and white and gold apologetically.

SkekMal chuckles.

“Your turn next, Scientist.”

SkekTek cranes his neck around, incredulous. “Are you _anywhere_ near completion?”

“Don't you worry about me. Are your knees tired at all?”

“Getting there,” skekTek admits.

He pulls out, and as compensation for the emptiness, skekTek is treated to the rather nice sight of skekMal's erections glistening with wetness he knows to be his own. Cushions are dragged in from the vast sea of them and before skekTek knows it, he's being willingly rearranged on his back. SkekMal folds him double, and does so to a degree that would have creatures less infamously nimble than the Skeksis squalling. As is? SkekTek's both comfortable and supremely content with the view of skekMal pressing back into him.

“Better?”

They're eye to eye like this, and the closeness of it makes skekTek color. If it weren't for skekSo observing them from his post-coital sprawl, he'd be a little tempted to tap their beaks.

“Substantially.”

But it's easy after that. Companionable. SkekMal supports him with all four arms and skekTek's find a cozy place around his solid frame, talons indulging by tracing ridges of muscle. The thought occurs, somewhat unexpected, that skekGra also leans on the muscular side and that skekMal also smells like the wind.

_'Thra preserve me, it appears I have a certain type.'_

SkekMal builds him like a maestro. Already, he appears to have laid out a mental map of skekTek's neck, all the spots that drive him wild neatly cataloged. As his climax starts to build, he makes a half-hearted attempt at pushing it down, just for the thrill of experiencing skekMal boosting it back up again.

“If you can spare an arm,” he asks, resolved to the inevitable. “Can you put your finger back on my...”

“Of course.” He slips a secondary arm between them, just below skekTek's leaking, upside-down erections and just above the place where his own are working slickly in and out. SkekTek moans in withering supplication.

“How are you so _good_ at this?”

SkekMal just smiles, mysterious as ever. And skekTek supposes they wouldn't have him any other way.

SkekMal works him fast, then slows, then speeds up again, and the result is a wash of pleasure wound tight as a coil and gentle as a blanket and sweet, so very sweet, and indeed, skekTek laps it like a bowl of cream he never wants to end. It's just right, it's _perfect, _and it's_..._it's...

“Ah! _Ahh!”_

“Come to me,” the Hunter instructs in a voice that's like a treeline in the dark; hushed and deep, but full of wild and inescapable things. “So that everyone in the room hears that pretty voice of yours.”

SkekTek couldn't deny him if all of Thra depended on it.

He arches clear off the ground, back a flawless bow, claws curling tight. Stutters skekMal's name just once before it all turns to formless noise, and then he's gone.

Mindless, weightless.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, he feels the glorious bloom of the Hunter's climax warming his insides.

Around the time he slow blinks his way back to reality, skekMal is gingerly lowering his hips to the ground. At some point, his tail has taken up a death grip on the Hunter's leg, something he vaguely considers being embarrassed over, then shoves it off to think about at another time.

There's a ripple of applause from the surrounding Skeksis, and alright, that _is_ embarrassing. Somewhat. SkekTek will still take it.

“Well, then,” skekMal concludes, sounding infinitely more put together than skekTek feels. “I have to say, I'm glad you waited around for me.”

SkekTek breaks down into peals of helpless laughter.

“You're _absurd. _How do you even exist?”

“And you're the one who made my night indoors fun. We're square.”

He pulls out and skekTek goes utterly boneless, laid out on the floor and probably resembling one of the Hunter's fresh kills...though if_ that's_ how he's been dispatching them, skekTek can't say he feels terribly sorry. When he feels the telltale warmth of skekMal's cum oozing out of him, he's quick to hook a palm over it, loathe to let go of it just yet. It's not until someone bumps his beak with a cold jug that he makes the bittersweet decision to become a living entity again.

“So, then,” says skekSil, who during the course of everything seems to have stolen in close enough for skekSo to casually stroke his ruff. Apparently, this is just one of those happy evenings where everyone gets what they want. “SkekTek will remember to relax now and then? No more toiling away for days on end?”

“If _this_ is the reward I get for taking abysmal care of myself, I'm going to cut my own hand off.”

SkekSil laughs.

They're creeping up on that inevitable point in the night when the herb burns down, the breezes get colder; when they recline a good deal more than speak, preen and softly finger comb more than fondle, and yawn in that cavernous, tooth-laden fashion that Skeksis do, which for some odd reason has a way of sending Gelfling childlings whimpering into their parents' robes.

“Alright,” skekTek says, rising slowly to his feet, which of course feel the need to betray him by wobbling. “This is where I leave you. Thank you for all of this; in case it isn't apparent, I couldn't be more fond of you all.”

SkekZok narrows distinctive icy eyes at him. “_Please _don't say you're heading back to that lab of yours.”

“No, I'm off to the baths. And _no_**,** none of you animals are allowed to join me, unless you want to ruin me for practical purposes forever.”

He leaves with as much dignity as he can with cum drying on his chest and ruff. But not before leaning down to whisper in skekGra's ear dip.

“Except for you. Join me? Please?”

SkekGra's eyes light up. It's impossible not to notice him scrabbling to his feet, the two leaving together.

But absolutely no one seems surprised.

***

Filling the baths with hot water and adding flower petals is typically the first task the Podling graveyard crew takes on every evening. The flower petals didn't even start out as a requested addition, but the staff know their employers well by now; know that small excesses are every bit as beloved in their lives as the grand ones. It's one of many reasons they're grateful for the Podlings, who though they may as a whole prefer earthier pleasures, relate to the Skeksis' hedonism on a level the Gelflings never will.

SkekGra and skekTek seek out one of the more private baths for their purposes. For a time, they simply luxuriate in the steam and quiet, taking advantage of the stone's ability to retain heat. It's only once they've had their fill of that that they come around to soaping up, then rinsing out one another's hair and feathers. And it's only then that skekTek begins to talk.

SkekGra listens. He may not understand terms like_ self-interstitials, vacancies, dislocations_ or why it matters that this new material contain so few of them, no more than skekTek understands his love of planting Skeksis banners in new lands largely so he can lounge around writing poems about their horizon lines while chewing hallucinogenic bark. But they always listen.

“It's waiting for me down there. Every time I think I'm on the cusp of it understanding it, I look up and realize I've spent days running in place. And nothing good can come of it being broken, but repairing it is guesswork, and the consequences of guessing incorrectly, fusion or death...” The very words turn to bitter ash on his tongue. If he were any one of the other Skeksis, he wouldn't soil his mouth with them either. “And one's as bad as the other. And I see both outcomes, and Thra knows at least a dozen others. I see them...all the time.”

SkekGra watches him through those quick brown eyes. His voice, which he'd spend all day projecting as loudly as possible if he thought he could get away with it, is just as soft. “Why do it to yourself, then? The Crystal seems fine for now.” It's the answer he expected from skekGra, and perhaps the one he needs most. SkekGra, who cares about things very much but always on his terms, no more and no less. “Why dwell on the worst before you even have to?”

“If I don't, who else will?”

SkekGra has no answer. He holds out an arm in invitation and skekTek goes to it. Rests his head against the flattened, sodden mane.

“....I wish Aughra were here. She would have had something to say.”

“You know what Aughra would have thought,” skekGra tells him gently. “The Crystal would have come first. She was never going to understand what it would mean, going back.”

“But she was _trying_. When she and I spoke alone, she always tried. And I think we could have accomplished it, the two of us. I truly do.”

Though skekGra offers no reply at first, skekTek can feel him thinking searching for what to say. Trusts him with whatever that may be.

“I think it's going to be okay. I'm not telling you this because it's what I think you want to hear...I _do_ think it will be okay. The Crystal's doing fine for now. No need to rush into anything. Maybe it will shatter into dust tomorrow, maybe a piece of the castle ceiling will break off and crush us all, who knows? But chances are the ceiling's fine, and so is the Crystal, and it may very well just keep on being fine for thousands of trine. And if it _does_ start to shatter, we'll make a trip down there and pour cold water on Aughra until she moves.”

That's the furthest thing from how that works, but still...

“...Alright. Yes. You're right.”

“Want me to scrub you?”

“Please.”

His head is still resting on the Path-Breaker's shoulder, a place he wouldn't be entirely averse to keeping it forever. The Skeksis' preferred mixture of soap smells like everything lovely on the face of Thra, and he lets himself unwind in the slow inhale and exhale of it, in skekGra's assurances, in his warmth and solidness and touch. The exquisite gentleness he applies when that sponge moves from his back to his neck.

“So...” the Path-Breaker ventures just a touch too lightly. “SkekMal, eh?”

“What about him?”

SkekGra gestures vaguely about his throat with the sponge. It dawns on skekTek that perhaps, just possibly, he's underestimated the damage.

“You were a sight, you know. I've seen you far gone before, but never quite like _that._”

“SkekMal is a supernatural entity beyond any of our comprehensions. Anyhow, he's skekSo's little plaything to share as he likes.”

“...But if he wasn't?”

SkekTek draws back. Looks him quietly in the eyes. “Then he still wouldn't be my bathing partner of choice. Nor the one I'm really rather looking forward to collapsing beside and sleeping for a trine.”

SkekGra's slow, bright, beautiful grin says it all. But if it didn't, the gentle clack of his beak against skekTek's would say the rest.

Maybe he's imagining it, but skekGra's hands seem lighter, less tense when they resume washing his skin, and that makes everything else seem lighter. SkekTek laughs when he catches on a ticklish spot, butts skekGra's head just because it's there, and doesn't point out the non-necessity of washing each secondary digit like it's the only digit on the planet that matters.

And when that sponge dips between his legs, moans aloud.

SkekGra's hand goes very, very still. “Sore? Or just...”

“Sensitive.”

“Ahh.”

“Immoderately so, as a matter of fact.”

SkekGra smile is playful. “I thought you were tired.”

“And yet, here we are.”

SkekGra reaches across the tub, displacing the water, and picks up the cloth that's reserved for eyes, ears, and anything else delicate in nature. He ties it tight around his index talon, and there's something about the careful, preparatory nature of it, the knowledge of what's coming and from who, that gets right into skekTek's core. SkekGra's hand slips below the water, and he raises up an inch or two, legs spread.

“_Ah_...”

SkekGra's drinking in the sight of him without shame; every minutia of ever expression, and that's okay. Slowly, slowly, the Path-Breaker quirks his finger in a beckoning motion, searching for the spot Aughra taught them about, the one they know to be there. “Going to let me take you apart, Scientist? With just one finger?”

“Oh, I've every confidence you will.” He feels his own smile turning ever more devious by the minute, but it's his turn to be mischievous for a change. “But I'm taking you down with me, _Path-Breaker._”

Before skekGra can hazard too deep a guess as to what he's in for, the hand skekTek's been hovering about his thighs drags its talons, and that's just enough stimulus to get the Path-Breaker hardening right into his waiting palm. SkekGra growls his approval, and there's a feral chitter of pleasant surprise behind it that skekTek is certain he wouldn't mind hearing more of.

“Am I being challenged right now?”

“Of course not! Not _everything_ is a challenge.” He puts his secondary hands to good use, and weaves his own phalluses around skekGra's like pleaching branches. “You're simply...my warm drink before bed.”

SkekGra beams. “Even better!”

As warm drinks go, skekGra is one of the best. He may be an incorrigible mushroom gobbler with a wretched sense of humor, and his extended explorations into the uncharted corners of Thra may have earned him a reputation for coming home matted with leaves and crawling with parasites that skekTek invariably and eagerly ends up studying, but you don't make it to the Crystal Desert and back without an attention to detail, and he doesn't need more than one finger to get the job done. In an humblingly short amount of time, skekTek feels the first telltale sensations of his spine turning to jelly.

But skekGra is rocking into it as skekTek strokes all four of their erections in tandem, restless tail wasting bathwater every time he teases a talon over one of the Path-Breaker's heads. So skekTek supposes it all evens out in the grand scheme of life.

“I love the bump in your beak. You really do have the best beak.”

SkekTek feels his face heat and ducks it, suddenly self-conscious; granted, not self-conscious enough to sacrifice a hand for the purpose of covering it up. “You _would_ go for the most absurd part of my face. Everyone usually just brings up the eyes and leaves it at that.”

“They should! They're gorgeous. And so is your beak!”

“_Gah!_ Vulgar flatterer! I swear, you're going to turn me into the Ornamentalist!”

“Right now? That would be awkward, wouldn't it?”

SkekTek twists both his phalluses around skekGra and watches with satisfaction as he's rendered temporarily speechless.

But skekTek spoke truthfully; this isn't a challenge. The Skeksis adore sexual challenges, and the both of them are no exception, but not here, and not now. All he wants now is what's before him, skekGra's beautiful wet ridiculous face looking up at him with fangs bared in pleasure; SkekGra's heated flesh against him, his finger speeding up inside him. The rising tension, like the sound of thunder baring ever closer, and their tails winding tighter and tighter together as the undeniable looms.

“_SkekGra...” _Maybe he's desperate, almost whimpering it, but does so again and again, just for the feeling of it on his tongue.

“Got me,” skekGra growls. “_Thra,_ you've always got me...”

He twitches against him once, twice, and comes, hissing, into his talons. As he does, he crooks his finger hard, skekTek rides it to his own undoing, which he voices in a volley of gasps. He tips forward and falls gladly into skekGra, face mashing into his ruff once again.

And there, just there, is where they remain.

_I've got you. I've got you. And I think I'm always going to be just a little bit yours._

Quiet.

Racing heartbeats.

Flower petals plastered all over them.

“You're a wonder,” skekGra says at last.

SkekTek takes one of his odd little facial prongs gently between his teeth, just so he can hold onto it for a while.

“Says the perpetual one.”

“Bed?”

“Absolutely.”

They dry one another off, towels warmed by the hot stones a final balm of luxury. SkekTek bursts into scratchy laughter as he roughs one over skekGra's head.

“Your hair...”

“My hair?”

It's not even _funny_, but heavens help him, skekTek is flushed, exhausted, and brimming with endorphins and...

“_You look like a Fizzig_.”

As though he himself doesn't resemble for all the world a wet Stonewood wander-fowl. As though his plume isn't pointing every possible direction save up. SkekGra grins, throws back his head, and _screams._

It's a flawless impression. He even nails the thousand yard stare.

SkekTek is, of course, a goner.

***

The Skeksis, despite the scandalous whispers that abound, do possess individual bedrooms. Sometimes they even use them. When they aren't, they most certainly do _not_ sleep in one massive bed, perish the thought.

It's actually a dozen beds pushed together.

SkekTek, when he first agreed to this night off business, did so with tenuous visions of making up for it with an early morning start. As he and skekGra settle into the free spot they've picked out just below the window, where they can smell the warm night air...as they settle more deeply still into one another's arms, that just isn't going to happen.

Before allowing his eyes to close, he looks about at them, silhouettes in the low blue lantern light. There's no hard and fast routine that dictates who will be here each night; who needs a reprieve from snoring and sleep hissing and who _needs_ to be crushed, bowled over. If he had to, skekTek could identify each and every one of them by their scent, by their sprawl, by the sound of their breathing. If his life lacks for no other certainty, it's a comfort to know they'll always be there.

From the edge of dreaming, he feels the mattress shift. Someone curves around him, embraces him with slow, half-conscious movements, and he recognizes it as skekOk. Not a minute later, skekLach is rolling over so as to sling an arm about skekOk, brushing affectionate talons along skekTek's side in the process. And before he's quite beyond the point of noticing or caring who is where, there is skekSil, nestling into what space remains.

SkekTek smiles with quiet completion, and falls asleep in the hope that they'll still be there when he wakes in the morning.

They are.


End file.
